When I found out we were going to Hawai'i, I got excited about wearing pretty summery dresses and as I was shopping around for some dresses to wear, I happened upon this one. It was too fancy to be a casual sundress, but I thought it'd look perfect in Hawai'i and got the idea to pull together a fun little faux bridal photoshoot. I wanted to have some tropical wedding photos in my portfolio because it's be pretty dang rad to travel to a tropical location to shoot a wedding. Right where I did the shoot there are actually real weddings all the time! I saw at least three weddings on the beach at the same spot where these shots were taken! I can't blame people, It's so gorgeous, especially right at sunset. We spent every sunset down at the beach with a drink in hand and watch the sun dip into the ocean.

I wanted an ethereal and a little bit vintage vibe, but with a tropical twist. I made the bouquet from $28 worth of flowers from Safeway and masking tape, the crown is one I made this summer and brought with me.

The dress is from ModCloth and I had it altered to fit me just right (and short girls, take note! I didn't cut any length off, so I think it might be intended as a tea length, but it was the perfect length for my 5'1" frame when I was barefoot). I knew I'd still have green hair, which didn't fit the look I was going for, so I took my black curly wig, added some curled extensions and it was perfect! It's funny to think that the last time I was in Hawai'i this is what my real hair looked like!

The dress is actually a bit of a light tan/nude color, and I loved how it matched the sand and how it glowed when the evening sun filtered through it! With my black hair matching the volcanic rocks and the dress matching the sand, I unintentionally matched my location pretty well!

Since the trip was kind of our anniversary vacation, it was fun to get all "brided up" again and feel fancy. I think women should be able to get fancy more often, especially us grown up ladies. I mean, you have prom or homecoming as a teen and then a wedding, but after that there aren't a ton of opportunities to get super fancy. And I think sometimes we feel self centered or vain getting dolled up, but I say screw that. You're allowed to feel pretty and get done up if it makes you feel awesome. I have a friend in Tacoma who does amazing boudoir shoots and I love how it makes her clients feel like bombshells. I think we sometimes need more glamour in our lives, and if your life isn't full of glamour naturally (which is where most of us exist, I imagine), you gotta make your own!

Something that I love about burlesque's influence on my life is that it's made me love wigs even more. The other night I was going out to a show in Seattle with my burly-gals and I had zero time to make my hair do anything cute, so I just grabbed this wig, gave it a little twist into a side ponytail type thing, slapped on a Swarovski headband and I was ready to go! The cheap wigs you get at the thrift store for Halloween aren't what you want, though. Invest in one or two higher quality wigs and you're good to go! The extensions I put in this one were a lot straighter than the curls of wig, so I just wet them down, put them in perm rods overnight until the hair was totally dry and voilà! They perfectly matched the curl of the wig. I'm eventually going back to black for my real hair color, so I think I might grab myself a redhead wig to keep me from wanting to dye my hair again!